Available through the 'Friends of the Museum' scheme, the annual £29.95 subscription (for adults) offers a wide range of benefits, including unlimited entry to the venue, as well as access to a number of impressive riding experiences.

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This includes the 'Museum Classic Bike Tours' initiative, which sees a range of six classic bikes from the museum available to ride for a day in the company of two out riders on modern machinery, with two mechanics in tow.

Running between March and late September, slots on all six of the yearly rideouts are made available by paying an additional fee to cover the insurance of the bike. This varies between models, with prices starting at £350 for machines like the 1958 Ariel Cyclone 650cc and climbing to £750 for the ultra-exclusive metal, including the Brough Superior SS100.

The first of these dates will take place on Saturday, March 23, with all six places now booked in. If the bike of your dreams doesn’t appear on the list available, the museum alternate the machines on the list with every ride. What’s more, should the unfortunate occur and you take a tumble, you incur none of the cost of repairs.

"Twice the Brough has lost a footpeg where someone’s clipped it against a curb and we’ve had it dropped, but they’re only motorbikes," museum director James Hewing said. "We’ve got three of the best restorers in the country."

"You think £750 is a lot of money, but we could sell out that experience for every weekend of the year. It’s nothing to people. People get too precious about this stuff and when you get too precious about stuff, then you can’t engage people."

Located on Coventry Road in Solihull, the museum opened its doors in October 1984 and was the brainchild of Roy Richards, who started the exhibition after selling off his plant hire business in the 1970s.

Holding around 850 British motorcycles from 171 manufacturers and with a further 150 on loan to customers including the Triumph Visitor Experience, the midlands venue’s collection is valued at a staggering £34,000,000.

"We tend to only do the riding days from the end of March to the end of September because of the weather, but if it rains, then they get wet." Hewing added.

"I’ve got two guys in the museum five days a week who just clean the bikes and they do van driving as well and they will wheel them out for people if they ask. We get a lot of families that come up with the old boys who owned some of these bikes and we’ll wheel them out and plonk them on it for a photo. We’re not precious at all – quite the opposite."

Ride more for less

Alongside the pricier tours, the museum also offer 'Try a classic bike' training days, which allow participants to ride a range of machines in a specially designed course around the museum’s grounds.

These take place on six days, with two groups per day at a nominal price of just £12.50. Much like the longer experiences, your fee covers you for any accidental damage and grants you access to an array of amazing machines, including the likes of the Brough and the Vincent. This is only available to Friends of the Museum, too.